What can you do with Sociology/Psychology/Cultural Studies/Social Anthropology post-grad qualification

[onebatmother]

Apart from pat self on back?

I am thinking of retraining but no idea about jobs. Those are the things I'm considering studying - what REAL ACTUAL JOBS might I get with a postgrad MA/PHD in them?

I mean ones that pay money. Any money. But must be money.

Thanks dearies.

PMSL at Ruty!

Are you backing nervously out of the thread now?!

backing out nervously, tripping on the carpet and drooling slightly...

[pockets tenner on way out]

oh not my feet Lenin you don't know where they've been...

I love advertising. I think it's often really funny and witty and stylish and smart - though less keen on the naffer 'your neighbour will look down on you if you don't use Surf'. Would be surprised if people really believe it anymore though, other than children, and even they seem sceptical nowadays. I also like things v. much. All sorts of things, they bring me great pleasure and happiness I'm afraid, perhaps more so than people - but I'm in the beautiful or useful school of things. I have no status anxiety, so don't view things that way.

I'd cry every night in a communist state I think. I'd have to hide away my bourgeois cerise silk slippers and polished stones and dark blue notebooks with thick white paper and in the dead of night get them out and stroke them lovingly. The aesthetic always seems brutal and ugly. I am all for sensuality and fabrics and slippers and just loads and loads of lovely beautiful well-crafted things.

Just thought I'd share that. I know you will all be fascinated

Lack of choice also, aesthetically speaking, often seems to equal mass production too, which is then usually ugly. We want a choice of lovely well-made things. I'd love that. I'd love a shelf of 30 different toothpastes, each with hand-painted boxes and a wild, dizzying choice of flavoured mint. I'd probably never leave the aisle actually.

Oh dear Lenin yes, quite. I'm afraid I put a v. high value on beauty (beauty in all kinds of things incl toothpaste boxes) is good for my soul imo.

100x Agree. I'm not a terribly aquisitive person, but life without Jo Malone and White Company Lavender ironing water would herald a sort of joylessness that I wouldn't welcome.

I am way too decadent for this thread though. I promise that I do know this! And obviously I don't want hand-painted boxes just for me - I want EVERYONE to have affordable hand-painted toothpaste boxes. It might be my one abiding wish in life.

Ironing water? What the bloody hell do you need that for?!

Mind you, I never iron. I have staff who do that for me.

I don't think I'm politically confused about capitalism. Or at least, I am, but not in the way you suggest swedes.

Of course I want an element for choice, but not the meaningless proliferation of choices that companies use to broaden their market share and increase the total volume of sales.

Is there anyone on this thread swedes who has called for an absolute transcendance of the market? Certainly many of us have said again and again that the market has an important place.

You use the term capitalism a lot. It doesn't just mean 'the preponderant presence of the market'. It means, I suppose, something like the means of production being entirely in the hands of the possessors of capital a fairly specific variety of a market society. Lots of different forms of market-based societies might be possible, based on a mixture of worker-ownership, state ownership, etc, with aa more-or-less battened down profit motive ie one that is given partial scope but tempered by other desirable outcomes???

Or is that all pants?

I tried unsuccessfully to find a youtube vid of that Fry and Laurie sketch where Fry sits down at nice restaurant table, with lovely cutlery which is then snatched away by waiter who replaces one beautiful fork with a hundred identical crap plastic forks, on the grounds that customer must have choice of which to use.

I suppose I want the kind of society where needs are explanatorily prior to choices. I.e., we have a range of needs; as a result people have an incentive to create objects meeting those needs; technological advance means that the needs can be better satisfied over time, so the goods sold evolve.

Currently there is a business imperative to expand the range of goods so as to expand sales, and 'needs' are manufactured accordingly. They are the effect not the cause of change.

Five crappy plastic Threadworm posts for you all to choose from! Instead of one well-considered one.

But you can't manufacture a need. All kinds of products get launched making this erroneous assumption. They may generate initial sales, as people try out interest/curiosity/the desire for something new, but unless a product actually meets a genuine need then people do not continue to buy it.

Too much choice, TW!

And in any case, in a free market it is anyone's right to make something and try to sell it - and no-one is coerced to buy it, as we use our free will to decide what we want to buy and what we want to reject.

Do you think, though, that often companies know that the product won't sell for long (because the innovation is worthless) and they are already planning the next innovation for when we get jaded with the previous?

I really admire advertising, btw. It often comes up with beauty, humour, etc. It is v creative.

I would be very surprised if many/any companies do this - there is too much money involved in developing and launching a new product. It would be a very risky venture to launch something that is only intended to sell for such a short period of time.

Mind you, mobile phones and computer technology does spring to mind ...

Yes, computer tech v interesting: with technological advance there is a huge rush of improvements and genuine new choices, driven by technological progress; then that gives way to a second phase, of companies chasing after novelty, innovation for its own sake, needless functionality, etc.

I think you can manufacture desire though, if not a need?

If you are told buying these trainers will make you cooler/more popular/more likely to have sex/win friends then it follows that you desire the trainers and all that wearing the trainers will bring. You don't need them, but you might desire them.